Just a Dream
by Anatala
Summary: When the pain of his past becomes too much to bare, Chase takes dramatic steps, leaving House to pick up the pieces. Character Death.


Just a Dream

AN: I have broken everyone of my personal rules regarding fanfiction in writing this. I vowed I would never do a song fic (the song is Just a Dream by Carrie Underwood), I would never use OC's (yes I did make up at least four characters here), I would never write a death fic (yes he does die, it's very sad, I was crying as I wrote this), and I would never do AU (I did change somethings about Chase's past, mostly the OC's). But some stories just have to be written and this was one of them.

Warnings: Tearjerker. Death fic. Suicide fic. Slight AU.

Disclaimer: I don't own it, some of you are probably glad I don't.

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_It was two weeks after the day she turned eighteen  
All dressed in white  
Going to the church that night  
She had his box of letters in the passenger seat  
Sixpence in a shoe, something borrowed, something blue  
And when the church doors opened up wide  
She put her veil down  
Trying to hide the tears  
Oh she just couldn't believe it  
She heard trumpets from the military band  
And the flowers fell out of her hand_

House looked down at the picture in his hands. In it sat a beautiful woman with auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes. In her arms she held a three year old little boy and a few month old baby girl. She was smiling up at the camera, waving one of the baby's hands while the toddler had both arms raised in the air and smiling a smile that only toddlers can do. House felt something warm and wet run down his face and it took him a few moments to realize they were tears.

House turned his gaze toward the trauma room he was standing outside of. Inside a team of doctors were busy shocking Chase's heart, trying to get it to beat again. As he watched, the song that had been playing on Chase's stereo when he had found him replayed over and over in his mind. It was fitting. Finally, House couldn't take it anymore.

_Baby why'd you leave me  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know  
I can't even breathe  
It's like I'm looking from a distance  
Standing in the background  
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now  
This can't be happening to me  
This is just a dream_

"Let him go," House said softly, but somehow everyone seemed to hear him because all activity ceased and all eyes looked at him in shock.

"House, you can't be serious!" cried Cameron. Her eyes were round and filled with tears. She couldn't understand what had driven Chase to this, and therefore couldn't understand what House was telling them.

"Just…let him go," House repeated in the softest, most compassionate tone anyone had ever heard him use.

The team of doctors looked hesitantly between House and Chase, and reluctantly began putting instruments away and disconnecting Chase from equipment. House barely heard one doctor calling a time of death. His gaze returned once again to the photo in his hand. He slowly walked into the now mostly empty trauma room and stopped next to Chase's bed. He gently grabbed Chase's hand and slipped the photo into it before closing the hand around it and replacing the hand. Then, without a word, he limped away back to his office where he locked the door and cried for the first time in a very long time.

_The preacher man said let us bow our heads and pray  
Lord please lift his soul, and heal this hurt  
Then the congregation all stood up and sang the saddest song that she ever heard  
Then they handed her a folded up flag  
And she held on to all she had left of him  
Oh, and what could have been  
And then the guns rang one last shot  
And it felt like a bullet in her heart_

"I just don't understand! How could he…how could he just kill himself?" sobbed Cameron. "Did it seem like anything was wrong to you?"

The others just shook their heads. No one had even noticed that something had been bothering Chase. He had seemed just like his normal self. The only person who seemed to have any idea was House, after all it was House that had found him, and he had made that weird scene in the ER. But House had been locked up in his office for hours and didn't seem like he was going to share.

House was sitting alone in his dark office. He remembered when he had first met Chase, during his interview. It had been an average interview, well, average for House. He was actually pretty impressed with the kid, and was intrigued by him. House had already made up his mind to hire him, but had one last question to satisfy his curiosity.

"So, answer me one last question and you're hired," House had said, gauging the kid's reaction.

"Sure," replied Chase.

"Why are you really trying to get away from Australia?" House asked.

The color seemed to drain from his face. Tears seemed to almost fill his eyes as he hung his head. He took a deep breath replying, "A year ago…my wife…and two children…were killed…it was a car accident…I can't stay there anymore. It's driving me insane."

House was silent. That was nowhere near the answer he had expected. He was almost sorry he had asked. He vowed never to mention it again.

"You're hired, you start Monday," House said, then got up and left.

_Baby why'd you leave me  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know  
I can't even breathe  
It's like I'm looking from a distance  
Standing in the background  
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now  
This can't be happening to me  
This is just a dream_

Even though in the future House had used things from their pasts to try to get a rise out of them or to hurt them, he never brought that up. He had never mentioned it to anyone. House had even made fun of Cameron's dead husband, but the subject of Chase's family was strictly taboo.

As the next two years went by, House had learned a lot of things about Chase, and it seemed almost everything he had learned made his heart break for the other man a little more. And House was not one to feel things for other people, so the fact that Chase enticed these emotions said something for the tragedy he had had to endure.

Finally House came out of his office, and found Cameron and Foreman, even Wilson and Cuddy, sitting gloomily around the glass table. They all looked up at his entrance.

"Do you know why Chase…" Cameron broke off in a sob, looking at House, hoping he could provide the answers she so desperately sought.

"I think he was just being overly dramatic," said Foreman. "Whatever it was couldn't have been worth killing himself over. What did rich boy ever have to be upset about anyway?"

The others looked at Foreman in shock and disgust. House was furious. He smacked the table in front of Foreman with his cane hard enough to crack the glass.

"You want to know why he killed himself, I'll tell you," House began. "Did you know that Chase was a twin? When he was ten years old, his twin brother died of cancer. At age twelve, his father walked out on him and his mother. When he was fifteen, his mother finally drank herself to death after five years of alcoholism. He was sent to live with his grandfather, who died when he was eighteen. His father just died a few months ago. But do you want to know why he really killed himself?"

The others were staring at him in shock, they hadn't known any of this. House lost some of his anger at this point and grief overtook his features.

"Three years ago today," he began, "His wife and two children were killed in a car accident. In one instant, his entire family was wiped out. And now that his father is dead, he had no one else. Honestly, I'm only surprised that this didn't happen earlier."

There was only silence for a very long time.

_Oh,  
Baby why'd you leave me  
Why'd you have to go?  
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know  
Oh, now I'll never know  
It's like I'm looking from a distance  
Standing in the background  
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now  
This can't be happening to me  
This is just a dream_

House was a little upset when Chase hadn't bothered to show up for work that morning. Chase always showed up for work, he was obsessed with it. House had tried calling him several times, but his house phone was unplugged, his cell phone went straight to voicemail, and he was sure his pager was off too. Actually he was starting to get a little worried.

House was trying to figure out what to do about his missing duckling when he noticed the date on his calendar. His eyes widened in shock and he spat some choice cuss words before grabbing his cane and his keys and limping out of the hospital as fast as he could.

He broke every speed limit and a few other traffic laws in order to get to Chase's apartment in record time. He pulled out his spare key that he had copied off of Chase's when we wasn't looking and unlocked the door without bothering to knock. He sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, that the only thing wrong was that Chase was curled up in a ball sobbing somewhere and not what House feared was wrong.

As he walked into the apartment, he could hear a song playing on the stereo. It was soft and very sad. House opened the door to the bedroom and was greeted with a sight that would be burned into his memory for the rest of his life.

Chase lay curled up on his side on his bed. A bottle of perfume lay on the pillow next to him and House could smell the sweet scent filling the air. Chase's eyes were closed, tear tracks stained his cheeks. In his arms he clutched an old brown teddy bear that had been his son's, who had then given it to his baby sister when she was born. He held a picture of his family tightly in his hand. On the night stand next to him was an overturned empty bottle of prescription pills. The label indicated that it had only been filled the day before.

House had called 911 knowing that it was probably already too late. The paramedics came and rushed him to the hospital.

As he watched them go, House reached down and picked up the picture that had been discarded in the flurry of activity. He followed them out in a daze.

_Oh, this is just a dream  
Just a dream_

A few weeks later House stood in a cemetery in Australia. He couldn't stand the thought of Chase being buried so far away from his family and had found out where they were buried and had had his body sent back home.

As he stood looking at the shiny new headstone, House couldn't help but recall a conversation he had had with his duckling the year previous. An incident in the hospital had triggered all the grief he had been keeping inside.

Chase had sobbed into House's chest that night that it felt sometimes as if all of this were just a dream, and he would wake up any minute with her lying beside him and his children in his arms.

"I hope that now," House said, laying the flowers on the four graves. "That you've finally managed to wake up from your dream. You deserve it."

End.


End file.
